This invention relates to a water supply unit for an ice making machine or apparatus and, more particularly, to a unit including an ice-making water conduit section and a flushing water conduit section and adapted to be easily and positively mounted in position to a pair of upright freezing plates.
An ice-making machine or apparatus disclosed in our filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 661,325, filed Oct. 16, 1984, and in application Ser. No. 660,485, filed Oct. 11, 1984 and assigned to the assignee of the present application, comprizes a pair of upright freezing plates with a cooling coil of the freezing system clamped therebetween, a plurality of rib-like partition plates formed on the front sides of the freezing plates at a constant spacing from one another, a water supply unit on the top of the freezing plates, and a water saucer at the lower ends of the freezing plates. The water saucer and the water supply unit are connected together via a pipe by a circulating pump whereby the ice-making water is pumped in circulation to the freezing surfaces of the freezing plates. After the ice product is formed to a predetermined size, it is released from the freezing plates.
In this type of the ice product making apparatus, accurate setting of the mounting position of the water supply unit relative to the freezing plates is extremely difficult to achieve so that supply of ice-making water to the freezing plates tends to be unstable due to fluctuations in the mounting position of the water supply unit thus causing turbulence so that it is extremely difficult to yield ice products of uniform shape.
In the above described ice making apparatus, in order to release the ice products grown to a predetermined size from the freezing plates, a hot gas is supplied to the cooling coil and/or flushing or defrosting water is caused to flow on the rear sides of the freezing plates. The present invention is directed to such ice product making apparatus wherein at least the flushing or defrosting water is used in the harvesting cycle thereof.